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Beatpaths’ NFL Power Rankings: Week 6

By referring to my graphical rankings, I’ve come up with a Power Ranking of all 32 NFL Teams. I didn’t rank any team below another team it had unambiguously beaten. I had to make some subjective quality choices for the rest of the list, but I’ll detail them below.

First, the graph I’m using for reference. No team can be ranked behind a team that is further down their beatpath.

1: Indianapolis: It was a subjective choice on who to put at the top, but Indianapolis was the obvious choice – they’re undefeated, can really pour on the points, and Peyton looks freakishly confident.

2: Jacksonville: Their only two losses are to two very good teams – Denver and Indianapolis – and they’ve beaten Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. They’re ranked ahead of Denver because of the Miami factor – Denver has consistency problems.

4: Pittsburgh: If not for Maddox, they might be higher. But Maddox stunk so badly that it seems like a flaw in the entire team’s judgment. Subjective: Better than Denver

5: Denver: They’ve shown flashes of brilliance. They really just need to improve their consistency.

6: New England: Don’t count them out, they’re getting well and still have great coaching and a great scheme. Subjective: Better than San Diego

7: San Diego: They’re consistently brilliant, but they’ve also consistently been beaten by teams that have lost to teams San Diego has beaten. Which makes them inconsistent. Subjective: Better than Seattle

8: Seattle: Another team with some real raw talent. Tough call on how to rank these next four teams. Subjective: Better than Carolina

9: Carolina: Still dangerous – losing to New Orleans in Week 1 got them off on the wrong foot, though. Subjective: Better than Atlanta

10: Atlanta: I’ll probably regret having Atlanta so low, but they just don’t seem to have much depth. They can stomp mediocre teams, but I don’t see them beating many good teams. Subjective: Better than Tampa Bay

11: Tampa Bay: I probably would have ranked them higher if not for Griese’s injury. But Tampa Bay has not yet beaten many quality teams. Subjective: Better than Kansas City

12: Kansas City: They’re good enough to dominate mediocre teams, but not much better. See Atlanta. Subjective: Better than Washington

24: Buffalo: They have the coolest NFL Primetime music. That in itself guarantees them a couple of extra wins every year. Subjective: Better than Miami

25: Miami: And fading fast. Subjective: Better than Tennessee

26: Tennessee: They have a fair amount of room they can move up in these rankings if they do something convincing.

27: Baltimore: Getting slower and more boring every week. Subjective: Better than Oakland

28: Oakland: They can pull a rabbit out of a hat every once in a while, but they’re really pretty pathetic overall. Subjective: Better than the Jets

29: Jets: It seems odd for them to be this low – maybe Tennessee is better than I think. That would give them more room to move up. Subjective: Better than Arizona

30: Arizona: They had such promise in the preseason. What happened? Subjective: Better than San Francisco

31: San Francisco: They seem okay at beating really low expectations, but not enough to actually be competitive. I think they’re this bad now, but have a good chance of improving over the next few weeks. Subjective: Better than Houston

32: Houston: How could they not be rated this low? And what will be higher – the number of points they score against Indy, or the number of times their QB gets sacked?

3 Responses to Beatpaths’ NFL Power Rankings: Week 6

Sure – the detailed explanation is at this link. But basically, a team has unambiguously beaten another team, if they’ve beaten them without being in a circular beatpath with them. For instance, if Miami beats Denver, who beats KC, who beats Miami, then it’s a circular beatpath, and none of them should get credit for the win because it’s no longer clear who is better than who.

Second, I delete extra arrows – Indy already has a beatpath to Houston, so if they beat them head-on, I’m not going to draw the redundant arrow.

So each graph shows which team has convincingly proven (so far) what other teams they are better than. The graph – and the rankings – will change over time as more matchups happen, and as more circular beatpaths happen (which is always because a team underperforms or has overperformed in the past).

Finally, using that, I generate a power ranking. No team can be above a team that has a beatpath to them. The rest of them are my subjective choices – you can see what those choices are in the list. After thinking about it, I think some of my choices were pretty bad – like having Baltimore be better than Oakland?? Yeesh.

You can also see that Philly beating San Diego this week is going to have a big effect on the rankings…